Best Practices to Prevent Opioid Abuse

Prescription narcotics, while important to manage pain after a surgery, are often associated with abuse. Dentists commonly prescribe opioids to relieve pain, but there are other ways that are effective without putting people at risk for opioid or substance abuse.

What Our Office Is Doing

Barnhart Dental is using best practices from the American Dental Association to help patients better manage pain, looking into management without using narcotic prescription substances that could lead to substance abuse. The ADA offers multiple resources in helping patients deal with the acute dental pain, as prescription opioid overdose is a serious problem in the United States, tragically taking the lives of 42,000 people at the height of the epidemic in 2016. Your Vienna, MO dental team wants to make sure you get proper care and treatment without harm from prescription drugs, and pledge to use best practices to safeguard our Vienna, MO community as much as we can.

Our Commitment to You

Dr. Joseph and Dr. John Barnhart are committed to keeping opioids from becoming a source of harm to our patients. We follow the CDC’s prescribing guidelines and are looking into screening patients for potential substance use disorders and using non-narcotics as the first-line of pain therapy. We are committed to providing comfortable dental care to all our patients. If you have any questions on dental pain management or any other health concerns, be sure to call today for an appointment.